Kate Mara – People Talking

Movie Review – ‘Morgan’ – Grilled Cheese for C-3PO

Directed by Luke Scott
Written by Seth W. Owen
Cast: Kate Mara, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rose Leslie, Michael Yare, Toby Jones, Chris Sullivan, Boyd Holbrook, Vinette Robinson, Michelle Yeoh, Brian Cox, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Giamatti, Crispian Belfrage, Jonathan Aris
Soundtrack: Max Richter

Very few people would dispute that Ridley Scott is a talented filmmaker. From ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner’, to ‘Gladiator’ and ‘Black Hawk Down’, to ‘American Gangster’ and ‘The Martian’ (not to mention that ‘1984’ ad for the Apple Macintosh), he’s been leaving an indelible mark on cinema for nearly four decades.

Unfortunately, Ridley Scott is only a producer on ‘Morgan’, supporting his son, Luke, who’s making his directorial debut.

Now, I’m not going to pass judgement on Luke Scott and say he’s a bad director solely based on his first effort. Generally speaking, he knows how to point and shoot, but ‘Morgan’ as a whole is disappointing.

Quite simply, the concept is highly derivative, the story is paper thin and predictable, the characters don’t feel real (they all talk funny, like people in a hack science fiction movie), and questions that should be answered never are. I mean, honestly, the marketing for the movie asks, “What is Morgan?” but we already know she’s a synthetic life form based on the trailer. The one thing I would have liked to know is why she was created, and that’s never answered.

As with my review of ‘Blood Father‘, I also find ‘Morgan’ frustrating because of the shear waste of talented actors. I’ve seen a good chunk of the cast give good performances in other movies, and I can reasonably assume the others I haven’t seen before have done solid work as well, but nobody leaves ‘Morgan’ covered in glory (not even Brian Cox, who’s merely a bookend character). To be clear, I wouldn’t describe anything in the movie as the worst acting I’ve ever seen, and it’s very possibly they were all just directed poorly, but there wasn’t a single character I came to care about in a significant way.

That’s it. That’s all I have to say. The movie’s hollow and not worth your time.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

P.S.
There’s an attempt at a twist ending that I found neither surprising or interesting.

Bleh.

Movie Review – ‘The Martian’ – Red Storm Rising

Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Drew Goddard, based on the novel by Andy Weir
Cast: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, Benedict Wong, Enzo Cilenti
Soundtrack: Harry Gregson-Williams

I know I’ll probably take some flack for this, but I’ve actually seen more of Tony Scott’s films than Ridley’s; and, yes, that does include some major tentpoles.

Regardless, and in spite of Ridley Scott riding in on kind of a bumpy streak, my expectations going into ‘The Martian’ were sky high (like 4.5 out of 5 stars minimum high).

Did it deliver? Should you believe the hype?

Well, mostly.

Let me start with the negatives, because, frankly, this movie left me with a funny aftertaste in my mouth. 95% of the film is “fictional ‘Apollo 13’ 2.0”, which is great, but then the remaining 5% is “MOAR ‘Gravity'”, which I was not expecting and which I found to be quite off-putting. Also, I question whether ‘The Martian’ needed to be two and a half hours long, and the length of acts should have been more balanced (first act a little longer, second act much shorter, third act much longer). Furthermore, everyone not named Matt Damon seemed pretty interchangeable in their roles; I mean, I don’t know this for sure because I didn’t work on the movie, but it didn’t seem like any role was written with a particular actor in mind, and they just cast whomever they wanted for whatever reason. Lastly, there’s a running gag of bad 1970s music which I didn’t find all that funny, and I thought it felt somewhat out of place in a movie such as this.

So, anyway, what’s good about this film?

Well, for one thing, Matt Damon. I’m not going to say it was the role he was born to play or anything like that, but the script puts a tremendous amount of responsibility on his shoulders and he carries all of it with aplomb. As an actor, he gets to demonstrate almost the full spectrum of emotion, and he is always believable; total heart and soul of the movie.

Another main strong point of ‘The Martian’, as you might expect, are the visuals. Now, it’s not on the same cinematic level as, say, ‘Interstellar’, or even ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, but for an outer space movie it looks as it should. There was obviously a lot of thought and effort put into the mission itself, like how all the vehicles and habitats and equipment would look, and it definitely comes through in the finished product.

Really though, what makes ‘The Martian’ as good as it is is the story, and this is no doubt thanks in large part to the fact that it’s based on a highly acclaimed novel. Movies don’t have to be entirely new ideas to capture our imagination (not that any idea is really new anymore). Sometimes they can take things we’re already familiar with and expand on them in a creative and exciting way, and that’s how I think of ‘The Martian’. And really, when is someone facing impossible odds not, at the very least, interesting? Not only that, but I appreciated seeing the ethical dilemmas of both the various teams on Earth and the remaining crew still in space.

It may not be the next “greatest movie of all time”, but ‘The Martian’ is certainly worth a theatrical viewing. Even if you don’t want to run out and see it again, you definitely won’t regret seeing it once as it was meant to be seen; and it’s probably much more fun than you’re expecting.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Movie Review – ‘FANT4STIC’ – “You made it ugly.”

FANT4STIC

Directed by Josh Trank
Written by Simon Kinberg, Jeremy Slater, and Josh Trank, based on characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Cast: Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathey, Tim Blake Nelson
Soundtrack: Marco Beltrami and Philip Glass

Sooooooo.

You feel like going to see a movie this weekend?

Well, if you want a fun superhero movie, I’d recommend Ant-Man.
If you feel like more of a psychological thriller, I’d recommend The Gift.
If you want a quality summer blockbuster, I’d recommend Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.

And, if you want to slit your wrists with a Swiss Army Knife, I’d recommend Fantastic Four, aka FANT4STIC.

In all seriousness, I’ve seen some depressing movies in my life, but I don’t know if anything in the past ten years has brought me down as far as FANT4STIC did.

Literally no one should ever see FANT4STIC. This movie deserves to be buried a billion times more than the 1994 Fantastic Four film that was actually buried (more on that later).

I mean, remember when superhero movies were fun? Remember when they made you feel good. For friggin’ sake, RoboCop leaves me feeling like I’m on top of the world, and RoboCop is a dead cop in a robot suit!

You know, just because they went gritty reboot with Batman doesn’t mean every superhero property needs to go gritty reboot. Batman can get away with it because he’s a darker character and because underneath the suit he’s only human, but really, the Nolan Dark Knight trilogy (and I do love it) should be the exception to the rule, not the rule itself. But, you know what? EVEN THE GRITTY BATMAN TRILOGY HAD ENOUGH MOMENTS OF LEVITY TO MAKE THE MOVIES FUN.

FANT4STIC pops off a few rounds of humor for good measure, but it’s not nearly enough to make up for the fact that the movie is inherently joyless. The few laughs sprinkled in are like trying to stop a train with a BB gun; it’s just not happening.

What’s also terrible is just the shear waste of talent that occurred here. You’ve got Josh Trank at the helm, who made Chronicle (one of the top ten movies of 2012, in my opinion), and a core/corps of fine young actors who you’d think would have some natural chemistry together, but either don’t, or it wasn’t brought out or captured properly.

Another important question to ask of FANT4STIC is, “Was this a story that needed to be told?” because the entire movie is an origin tale. Not a portion; the whole dang thing. A lot of times superhero movies get criticized for falling apart somewhat after the origin section is over, but I’ll take that scenario over what FANT4STIC offers any day.

You know what else wasn’t that great (in comparison to most analogous movies these days)? The visual effects. That’s probably because FANT4STIC “only” cost $120 million, down from the usual $175-200 million studios are dropping for Summer tentpoles, but a lot of things just didn’t look as good as I would have expected. Not that better visuals would’ve changed the fact that the film is a total downer, but it’s still a noticeable weakness.

I honestly don’t know what else to say, other than FANT4STIC was dark, depressing, flat, and depressing.

I wish I had never gone to see it, but perhaps this warning will help others avoid a similar fate. In all my years, I never thought I would consider it necessary to actively help a movie FAIL.

Have fun, kids. Don’t see FANT4STIC.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

P.S.
As I mentioned, if you want to see a Fantastic Four movie that’s actually a good time, check out the unreleased 1994 Roger Corman-produced film. Sure, it’s extremely low budget (which means most of the effects are laughably bad), cornier than Nebraska, and cheesier than Wisconsin, but at least it’s charming and fun (and doesn’t bring on suicidal thoughts). If you have 90 minutes to kill sometime, I highly recommend watching it.

The Fantastic Four (1994 unreleased) Roger Corman by yourgeeknews